tag: UC San Diego

Tracking cyber attacks
According to Georgia Tech, assessing the extent and impact of network or computer system attacks has been largely a time-consuming manual process, until now since a new software system being developed by cybersecurity researchers here will largely automate that process, allowing investigators to quickly and accurately pinpoint how intruders entered the network, what data... » read more

Machine learning is beginning to have an impact on the EDA tools business, cutting the cost of designs by allowing tools to suggest solutions to common problems that would take design teams weeks or even months to work through.
This reduces the cost of designs. It also potentially expands the market for EDA tools, opening the door to even new design starts and more chips from more compan... » read more

Machine learning and deep learning are showing a sharp growth trajectory in many industries. Even the semiconductor industry, which generally has resisted this technology, is starting to changing its tune.
Both [getkc id="305" kc_name="machine learning"] (ML) and deep learning (DL) have been successfully used for image recognition in autonomous driving, speech recognition in natural langua... » read more

Machine learning can be used for many purposes, but not all of them are good—or intentional.
While much of the work underway is focused on the development of machine learning algorithms, how to train these systems and how to make them run faster and do more, there is a darker side to this technology. Some of that involves groups looking at what else machine learning can be used for. So... » read more

Timing closure has resurfaced as a major challenge at 10nm and 7nm due to more features and power modes, increased process variation and other manufacturing-related issues.
While timing-related problems are roughly correlated to rising complexity in semiconductors, they tend to generate problems in waves—about once per decade. In SoCs, timing closure problems have spawned entire methodolog... » read more

Crystal database
The University of California at San Diego and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have created an open-source database of elemental crystal surfaces and shapes.
The database, called Crystalium, is a new and expanding set of information about various crystals. The database can help researchers design new materials for various applications, such as batteries, catalytic conv... » read more

A chip with 1,000 processors
A microchip containing 1,000 independent programmable processors has been designed by a team at the University of California, Davis. Called the KiloCore chip, it contains 621 million transistors and was fabricated by IBM using its 32nm CMOS technology. Cores operate at an average maximum clock frequency of 1.78 GHz, and they transfer data directly to each other r... » read more

Free-electron laser EUV consortium
Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is delayed. Chipmakers hope to insert EUV at the 7nm node, but that’s not a given. As before, the big problem is the EUV light source. So far, the source can’t generate enough power to enable the required throughput for EUV in high-volume production.
ASML’s current EUV source is operating at 80 Watts, up from 10 ... » read more

Professor Michael Taylor’s research group at UC San Diego is studying ways to exploit dark silicon to optimize circuit designs for energy efficiency. He spoke with Semiconductor Engineering about the post-Dennard scaling regime, energy efficiency from integrated circuits all the way up to data centers, and how the manufacturing side can help. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (P... » read more

Professor Michael Taylor’s research group at UC San Diego is studying ways to exploit dark silicon to optimize circuit designs for energy efficiency. He spoke with Semiconductor Engineering about the post-Dennard scaling regime, energy efficiency from integrated circuits all the way up to data centers, and how the manufacturing side can help. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. To... » read more